JERUSALEM — Preceding the U.N. atomic watchdog’s report on Iran’s nuclear quest, a flurry of
reports about Israel increasingly tilting toward preventive military action
against Iran highlights U.S. military support of Israel but tests its influence over
its ally.

On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to report that Iran has carried out
experiments for developing nuclear weapons including explosions and computer simulations of
explosions.

Either public diplomacy or policy, psychological warfare intended to advocate harsher international
sanctions or preparation for international endorsement of military action, the wave of speculations raised
even more speculations as President Shimon Peres addressed the media reports.

Appearing on Channel Two’s prime-time news on Friday, the president urged “the other nations of the world
to act. … It’s time to stand behind the promise that was made to us, to fulfill their responsibility, whether
that means serious sanctions or a military operation.

“It may well be that comments on the topic serve their own function,” he added elliptically.

Peres didn’t depart from the customary all-options-are-on-the-table shared by Israeli and U.S.
spokespeople. “No decision was made,” he cautioned.

Yet it’s left the international community, particularly the U.S., wondering whether Israel is on the brink of
deciding in favor of such a unilateral attack.

The frenzy was ignited a week earlier by Nahum Barnea, Israel’s foremost columnist, in the mass-
circulation newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth: “Have the prime minister and defense minister settled on a
decision, just between the two of them, to launch a military attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran?”

Was Barnea’s question mere prescience, or was he all too well-informed? Next, the media was abuzz with
conjecture of a potential military action on Iran.

Hence, the report by the liberal daily Haaretz that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been busy
sounding members of his inner cabinet about such strike.

“It’s best not to talk about how complex and intricate this strike is,” Eli Yishai, interior minister and head of
the religious Shas Party, confided to a group of supporters. “This operation leaves me sleepless.”

The somber, somewhat obscure confession was meant to instill gravity among his fellow Israelis. And
there might have been an ulterior motive — to instill urgency among not only IAEA, but more specifically
U.S., officials.

According to Barnea, the question of whether to attack or not to attack Iran “distresses foreign
governments, which find it difficult to understand what’s happening here.

“On one hand, there are mounting rumors of an Israeli move that will change the face of the Middle East
and possibly seal Israel’s fate for generations to come; on the other, there’s a total absence of public
debate. The issue of whether to attack Iran is at the bottom of the Israeli discourse,” Barnea remarked.

Indeed, U.S. officials noted “a substantial reduction in Israeli pronouncements” on the issue, “both public
but also private through diplomatic and defense channels,” according to U.S. sources cited in Haaretz.

So, when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta came to Israel a month ago, it appears that the visit’s backdrop
stemmed from a sense that the U.S. administration didn’t have a clue where Israel was headed vis-à-vis
Iran.

Yet, Panetta received no clear commitment — either from Netanyahu or
from his counterpart, Ehud Barak — that Israel would refrain from
attacking Iran without prior coordination with the U.S.

The two Israeli leaders were vague about Israel’s intentions, as if Iran’s nuclear ambivalence (in some
simulation of Israel’s own nuclear ambiguity) had influenced them to shroud their intentions in uncertainty.

But the evasiveness may simply have been aimed at pressuring not only Iran, but also the U.S.

The issue of tight coordination on Iran lay at the heart of the relations between the two countries.

When in 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave the green light to the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi
nuclear reactor at Osirak, he did it without giving advance warning to President Ronald Reagan. Israel’s
defense establishment was consulted, but Begin overrode their opposition.

In his memoir, Decision Points,
published a year ago, former President George W. Bush recalls the
Israeli
airstrike in September 2007 on the Syrian nuclear reactor near Deir
e-Zour. He writes: “Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert hadn’t asked for a
green light, and I hadn’t given one. He had done what he believed was
necessary to protect Israel.”

But Syria is not Iran.

Besides, some in Netanyahu’s inner cabinet believe that if a military action is a necessity, Israel
will be better off if the U.S. launches it.

Do the bilateral relations suffer from lack of mutual trust, especially as Israel has, for the past three years,
failed to engage in meaningful peace talks with the Palestinian Authority?

Is Israel becoming an embarrassment, or worse, a liability, for U.S. interests in the region, with the U.N. ready
to endorse Palestinian statehood, but the U.S. ready to use its veto power at the Security Council?

Not necessarily.

The depth of U.S. commitment to Israel’s security has never been demonstrated so forcefully as during
President Barack Obama’s administration, though Israel didn’t meet the presidential hope that in assuaging
Israel’s security fears, Netanyahu would become more inclined to overcome his reticence vis-à-vis the
Palestinians.

A demonstration of this commitment could be perceived in the announced “largest” and “most significant”
joint maneuver in the two allies’ history.

Speaking to the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
U.S. Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro
declared, “Our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper and
more
intense than ever before,” adding that Israel’s military edge was a “top
priority” for the U.S.

20120375695 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fklochendler%2F2011%2F11%2F07%2Fis-israel-hoping-for-a-us-attack-on-iran%2FIs+Israel+Hoping+for+a+US+Attack+on+Iran%3F++2011-11-08+06%3A00%3A39Pierre+Klochendlerhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012037569 to “Is Israel Hoping for a US Attack on Iran?”

People like Shapiro keep trying to cast Israel as a strategic asset; it's not. Israel is not an ally, or an asset; unlike every other country in the world, Israel is a strategic objective of the United States. That's why it gets the very odd treatment it receives.

[…] Israel is Beating the war drums Again Is Israel Hoping for a US Attack on Iran? Is Israel Hoping for a US Attack on Iran? by Pierre Klochendler — Antiwar.com US is too tired from fight wars after wars…. Reply With Quote […]

Israel cannot attack Lebanon as long as iran is able to provide military equipment. Israel is very quickly running out of water mostly because they wasted what they had. For 68 years they planted trees in northern Israel and millions and millions now grow. They cried we took the desert and made it into a forest. The problem is the trees area terrible fire hazard and they suck up all the water in the region. It destroyed the water levels of most of northern Israel.
Also if Israel steals southern Lebanon they get total control over the gas fields of the coast.

Israel knews it is better to have others bleed for Israel than waster the IDF on something like fighting.

Israel isn't 'hoping' the US will attack Iran- given their stranglehold on Congress, Israel EXPECTS the US to attack Iran. I can just imagine the back-room threats and deals and payments being made to ensure that particular outcome.